Cyprus-Forum.com

[Sotos]

It is only bloody natural that they would want partition! It's not as if we gave them a chance or the opportunity to stand by the RoC!

They wanted partition from before there was a ROC.

My post was about the erroneous statement that "there are no TC refugees".

There clearly are TC refugees according to the proper definition of the term. They fled from the perceived or real (and I would say their fear was very real) threat. Quite clearly they believed their lives were in danger, and their lives were in danger from the Nicos Sampson gangs and killing squads that went through Tohni and Sandarlar. These perverse acts were nothing less than war crimes and genocide.

As a result, they had little choice but to flee from this danger and get behind the Turkish Lines. Therefore, they are refugees in the truest sense!

They were in real danger only after Turkey invaded us to achieve partition. And Sampson was gone days later ... real refugees would want to return to their own homes. They didn't because they got partition which is what they wanted.

[Paphitis]

It is only bloody natural that they would want partition! It's not as if we gave them a chance or the opportunity to stand by the RoC!

They wanted partition from before there was a ROC.

My post was about the erroneous statement that "there are no TC refugees".

There clearly are TC refugees according to the proper definition of the term. They fled from the perceived or real (and I would say their fear was very real) threat. Quite clearly they believed their lives were in danger, and their lives were in danger from the Nicos Sampson gangs and killing squads that went through Tohni and Sandarlar. These perverse acts were nothing less than war crimes and genocide.

As a result, they had little choice but to flee from this danger and get behind the Turkish Lines. Therefore, they are refugees in the truest sense!

They were in real danger only after Turkey invaded us to achieve partition. And Sampson was gone days later ... real refugees would want to return to their own homes. They didn't because they got partition which is what they wanted.

It still does not make any difference Sotos!

War Crimes were committed against them and I am sure most of them felt they had little choice but to flee "for their lives".

Hence they are refugees just like the 180,000 GC refugees that fled from the northern areas.

Cyprus has 225,000 refugees in total when you combine the GC and TC refugees!

This is how the International Community view it as well.

[Sotos]

I am not denying there were elements in the TC community and leadership that wanted partition after the end of British rule. I am just pointing out that the claim that 'TC wanted partition since the 1950's' is itself a distorted claim. For an ordinary TC in the 50s with British rule coming to an inevitable end what choices did they have ? Between ENOSİS and partition for most TC partition was the inevitable preference - especially given how ENOSIS was pursued leading up to the end of British rule and after it. We will never know how many TC would have sought partition over (sincere) independence because that was never an option offered. The point is it is pointless to just blame one community alone for the mess we are in today. The leaderships of both communities drove agendas that were absolutist and mutually unacceptable and the ordinary members of both communities allowed such extremists to be in control. Anyway if my 10 years of posting on this forum and other like it has taught me anything its that such discussions here are largely pointless and possibly do more harm than good so I will not say any more.

The enosis choice was obvious when the 80% of the population in Cyprus is Greek. But partition was not an obvious choice at all because the TCs were spread all over Cyprus and there wasn't any Turkish part that could be partitioned. So how the hell did partition become a choice in the first place... especially when you say that ordinary TCs didn't want to leave from their homes, which many of them would have to do in order for them to get partition? I will tell you how! It was a made up choice that was given to them by Britain and Turkey. Because Britain and Turkey couldn't stomach that Cypriots could be free to take decisions for Cyprus. They wanted Cyprus to be their puppet state and they used your minority to get what they wanted!

[erolz66]

The enosis choice was obvious when the 80% of the population in Cyprus is Greek.

It may have been obvious for Greek Cypriots but the problem was by choosing to want to be part of the Greek people and Greek state they made TC by definition part of some 'other' peoples and thus gave them a separate and equal right to self determination as a separate people.

Anyway as I said already this is pointless discussing here. You will never change your view that GC had a right to impose enosis on the TC community against their will and with no consideration for their wishes as a significant community in Cyprus that was not Greek and did not want their (shared) homeland to be part of Greece. You will continue to believe that GC alone had the right in the name of a unitary Cypriot people to say that such a people did not in fact exist but only Greeks and some others existed, despite the clear contradictions of such a belief. Nor will my views change either. So what is the point.

[Jerry]

The enosis choice was obvious when the 80% of the population in Cyprus is Greek.

It may have been obvious for Greek Cypriots but the problem was by choosing to want to be part of the Greek people and Greek state they made TC by definition part of some 'other' peoples and thus gave them a separate and equal right to self determination as a separate people.

Anyway as I said already this is pointless discussing here. You will never change your view that GC had a right to impose enosis on the TC community against their will and with no consideration for their wishes as a significant community in Cyprus that was not Greek and did not want their (shared) homeland to be part of Greece. You will continue to believe that GC alone had the right in the name of a unitary Cypriot people to say that such a people did not in fact exist but only Greeks and some others existed, despite the clear contradictions of such a belief. Nor will my views change either. So what is the point.

And you will never accept that any disproptionate power, special status or rights granted (intervention) to Turkish Cypriots and Turkey was, to Greek Cypriots, a return to Ottoman dominance. Even if Cyprus had been granted independence on the same terms as ALL other British colonies I'm certain that the likes of Denktash would have given Turkey "cause" to intervene.

To put it into context, when my grandfather was born Cyprus was part of the Ottoman Empire.

Perhaps you can point to other former colonies where minorities were granted status equal with the majority as in Cyprus and where third party States had the right to intervene.

[Sotos]

The enosis choice was obvious when the 80% of the population in Cyprus is Greek.

It may have been obvious for Greek Cypriots but the problem was by choosing to want to be part of the Greek people and Greek state they made TC by definition part of some 'other' peoples and thus gave them a separate and equal right to self determination as a separate people.

When the Ottomans invaded our island we were Greek-Christian people and the invaders were Turkish-Muslim people. By definition you were "other people" from the beginning... and during the 400 years of Ottoman rule there were lots of discriminations against Greek-Christians... so don't tell me that it is our choices in the 50s that made you "other people" because that is the biggest lie ever. You are an ethnic minority and ethnic minorities don't have separate self-determination.

Anyway as I said already this is pointless discussing here. You will never change your view that GC had a right to impose enosis on the TC community against their will and with no consideration for their wishes as a significant community in Cyprus that was not Greek and did not want their (shared) homeland to be part of Greece. You will continue to believe that GC alone had the right in the name of a unitary Cypriot people to say that such a people did not in fact exist but only Greeks and some others existed, despite the clear contradictions of such a belief. Nor will my views change either. So what is the point.

The point is that you should always be reminded that you occupy land that does not belong to you. Your rights are those of an ethnic minority. Taking more than that by force is a hostile act against the majority of the population which by definition makes you our enemy... no excuses from you are accepted.

[Jerry]

When the Ottomans invaded our island we were Greek-Christian people and the invaders were Turkish-Muslim people. By definition you were "other people" from the beginning... and during the 400 years of Ottoman rule there were lots of discriminations against Greek-Christians... so don't tell me that it is our choices in the 50s that made you "other people" because that is the biggest lie ever. You are an ethnic minority and ethnic minorities don't have separate self-determination.

The point is that you should always be reminded that you occupy land that does not belong to you. Your rights are those of an ethnic minority. Taking more than that by force is a hostile act against the majority of the population which by definition makes you our enemy... no excuses from you are accepted.

Come off it Sotos, the Greeks must have arrived as invaders/settlers at some time. I think 400 years gives Cypriots of Turkish descent to consider themselves Cypriot, of course those that consider themselves as Turkish first (like Denktash) are a different matter.

[GreekIslandGirl]

Come off it Sotos, the Greeks must have arrived as invaders/settlers at some time. I think 400 years gives Cypriots of Turkish descent to consider themselves Cypriot, of course those that consider themselves as Turkish first (like Denktash) are a different matter.

The French ruled England for over 300 years but you don't see France demanding part of Britain nowadays for the Normans that stayed behind. Moreover, the Ottomans never integrated and up until only about ONE century ago they still enslaved us - so I think your touchy-feely nonsense of them suddenly becoming Cypriots (since they have NEVER integrated but sought only to rule,) on top of the fact they forced partition rather than integrate, should be confined to the dustbin of history.

If they rethink and decide to integrate, since we are in a wider europe, there is hope; but to insist on being a separate community is not how civilization progresses.

[erolz66]

When the Ottomans invaded our island we were Greek-Christian people and the invaders were Turkish-Muslim people. By definition you were "other people" from the beginning... and during the 400 years of Ottoman rule there were lots of discriminations against Greek-Christians... so don't tell me that it is our choices in the 50s that made you "other people" because that is the biggest lie ever. You are an ethnic minority and ethnic minorities don't have separate self-determination.

You still refuse to see the point that I am trying to make, which does not surprise me at all. You sought to claim enosis as the genuine expression of the majority will of a unitary Cypriot people, yet ENOSIS itself denied the very existence of exactly that unitary Cypriot people. This is the paradox and the 'unique' element of what happened in Cyprus. That you choose to refuse to see or acknowledge this clear paradox in even the smallest degree does not make it any less of one. You could of course have claimed enosis as an expression of the free will of that part of the unitary Greek people living in Cyprus and claimed that the 'others' should have no say as they were just prior invaders - but you knew that this would have had even less chance of gaining any international support for your aim of enosis than the 'paradox' route, which in the end also failed and delivered instead the 60's 'agreements'.

It probably is true that if Cyprus had been 80km of the coast of mainland Greece you probably would have got away with this paradox, but it is not and you did not. Nor if that is true does it mean it would have been any more right either.

The point is that you should always be reminded that you occupy land that does not belong to you. Your rights are those of an ethnic minority. Taking more than that by force is a hostile act against the majority of the population which by definition makes you our enemy... no excuses from you are accepted.

You can keep insisting that our rights as a community are no more than those of an ethnic minority all you like but what undermines such a continued claim more than anything is actually how you treated us when we were a numerically smaller community sharing out homeland with you leading up to independence and even more so after it. Taking more by force, as happened in 74, was not right but then neither was trying to impose less by force right either, as happened from 60-74 and there is a relationship between the two - not a justification but a connection - which again you will simply seek to deny to the very core of your being.

[Lordo]

just to go back to the topic. if you have resided outside cyprus before 1974 you will be able to claim your land and sell it, but be prepared because they only pay 10% to tcs. put a gc front man there and even after he gets his commission you will end up with far more.

some of you boys are amateurs. your leader signed and agreement for no taksim or enosis and the day he walked into his office he started planning the destroy the republic to achieve enosis. i would not trust you swines with disposing my shit never mind protecting my human rights.and of course we can go back to 1972 when clerdies and danbgtas agreed on the 13 amendments unified local authorities and everybody to their homes. you assholes you refused it then and you cant have it kapish, now go play with some toys or some stress relief activities.

what was it makameglomania said, i did not sing no enosis in 60 to sign for it again in 72. you created it now wallow in it.